Patrick Elliott <sha### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> I am seriously confused about what it would simplify... SDL already does 
> most everything that OO stuff can.

  It certainly does not.

  One of the basic features of an object-oriented language are modules.
  A module (in OO languages usually called a class) has a state (defined by
its attributes, ie. member variables) which can be modified with the methods
(ie. member functions) of the module. In well-designed OOP the state of the
module is private and can only be modified through the public methods (the
principle of abstraction, an extremely important principle in good
programming).
  You can create instances of modules, and modules can have other modules
or references to other modules (even of its own type) as attributes. (Among
tons of other things, it allows you to make eg. linked lists of module
instances.)

  A second basic feature of an OO language is inheritance. You can create
a new module which implements everything some other module implements
plus more (this is usually called specialization).
  Among other things, inheritance allows making more abstract, generic
functions to handle different types of modules (given that they have been
inherited from a common base class).
  Some modules may even be defined as abstract, meaning that they can't be
instantiated directly (because it wouldn't make any sense) but must be used
through inheritance.

  A third basic feature, related to inheritance, is dynamic binding. You
can declare virtual functions in a base class which the inherited classes
can implement. When a function having only a base class reference calls
this virtual function, the proper inherited function is called (even
though the caller doesn't have any knowledge about the inherited classes).

  The POV-Ray SDL does not implement anything of this.

-- 
#macro N(D)#if(D>99)cylinder{M()#local D=div(D,104);M().5,2pigment{rgb M()}}
N(D)#end#end#macro M()<mod(D,13)-6mod(div(D,13)8)-3,10>#end blob{
N(11117333955)N(4254934330)N(3900569407)N(7382340)N(3358)N(970)}//  - Warp -

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